Evolution of Indifference - Chapter 8

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7

Chapter 8 - Flashbacks

When I was a kid, I had a vision. I'm not sure whether or not you believe in such things, but this vision was as real to me as the pitter patter of the keyboard as I write these lines. Yet, as real as it was, I saw it only in Black & White.

The vision defined my worldview and while many of you would probably have investigated it to find out whether or not it was true, I simply KNEW it was true. I didn't need anyone else to confirm it for me, and since I didn't really want to discuss it ... I simply didn't. For many years, I kept it inside, knowing that I wasn't just different, but I was also unwanted. Hell, as if the life I lived being given away to my aunt and uncle wasn't enough - I had this vision to prove it.

It was like that time I turned around in bed in the middle of the night. By this point, I had moved out of my aunt and uncle's house and moved in with my mom and brother. (That happened when I was 9) There in the middle of the night, I saw with my own eyes a something that solidified my belief in all things spiritual. My brother lay prostrate about three feet above his bed, levitated in a perfectly horizontal position, his blanket hanging on either side of him just touching the top of the bed.

I was in church at the time and was all about the spiritual realm, so I immediately turned back over, said "that boy really IS a freak" and went back to sleep. I'm not lying - this really happened. If you don't believe in shit like that, I suppose you think you're reading fiction - that's fine. What was similar about this and my vision is that I never told anyone what I saw. That was pretty typical for me growing up - I never told much.

I saw my mother pregnant with me, and crying. I knew it was me in her womb, but I was watching the events unfold as the five-year old me ... walking around like a casper no one could see. But I could see it all - there was my mom at the top of a staircase. She was on the second floor, in the hallway. It wasn't an elevator building - a walk-up. Not sure how many floor there were above us, but we were definitely on the second floor.

There was a two step walk-down to a landing, a turn right and an entire flight of stairs to a 1" X 1" tile floor, alternating in white and color, white and color. What color, I don't know - I just know that it wasn't black. My mother walked very slowly toward the top of the stairs, reaching for the banister. And she threw herself down the stairs, crying the whole way ... and took me and her womb with her.

Till this very day, I remember that vision. And I remember that spirit of "knowing" that I carried with me ... knowing as a child that my mother really didn't want my pregnancy. It explained to me why I lived with my aunt and uncle - it explained a lot. Like, it explained why she began to charge me rent to live in her house when I was 15.

And I thought about these things a lot when I was in college, smoking and drinking and drugging myself into these pensive moments. And many times I would wallow in those stupors and accept that I dealt with a lot more shit than the average Joe.

Amazingly, I thought a LOT - but I never cried about it.

Thinking was my therapy.

The Evolution of Indifference (7)

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6

Chapter 7: My Holy Hell

College is supposed to be the best years of your life. In retrospect, in that I spent those years sleeping until whatever hour I wanted to, never waking to an alarm clock and staying up to the wee hours of the morning, they sure were. I miss being able to live like that, oblivious to the fact that the piling school loans are going to be a looming cloud ... oblivious to the fact that most people actually have to get up and go to work. They were good years.

But while living them - I didn't think they were. I was forced to contend with the fact that I never dealt with my sexuality. I was never out, no one ever knew and I didn't have anyone to talk to about it. So, I took to writing poetry. I didn't even know I was good at it - never knew I knew so many words. But I found that I needed more and more words to completely and fully describe the vacuous emotional tumor I carried around in my heart. It was heavy and hollow, bitter and sweet, pressured and empty ... all at the same time. And in describing my tears as rain, and my body as a barrier wall between me and everyone else, I penned the following:

This pain is real, "it cuts like a knife,"
But my mind wanders ...
I can feel the rain beat on thse walls.
These walls are thing, yes, far from opaque.
I know you can see.
So, why won't it rain outside of these walls?

A cloud searches o'er land and sea,
It finds rest ominously over me.
I carry it with me where'ev I go.
I know you can see.
So, why won't it rain outside of these walls.

It's beginning to rain,
from this cloud so dark.
These walls will quiver
And crumble to hell ...
I know you can see.
So why won't it rain outside of these walls?

I hate this hell, I need to escape;
Help me climb out.
But ere you do, grant me this: Please, Please
Make it rain ... OUTSIDE of these walls!

My Freshman year started in August of 1993 - I started college having never been drunk, never smoked a cigarette, never done drugs ... I was ripe for college to corrupt me. It started with the drinking. I did a lot of drinking that first semester - I just didn't know how to cope with life and no one empathized with me (or shed rain for me, with me) and drinking became a coping mechanism of all coping mechanisms. I was the only minority on my floor and didn't relate to not one of the guys I lived with. Not one. In that sheltered private college of a place, I met people who had never before seen a black person in the flesh.

What!?

So, not only was I dealing with this void within me that made me feel different than my own family, now I was stuck on a college campus where I was different than every other mother fucker there too! Oh, how I loved alcohol.

And poetry. Somber, melancholic poetry darker than I knew I was.

And then conundrum after conundrum revealed itself to me. I was on a college campus with a set of the population I couldn't relate to, with feelings of identity that I couldn't figure out, studying a technically intense engineering curriculum that was shaping me into a professional that was going to that much more much less in common with his own family ... I couldn't talk to anyone about it, even still, and I didn't know how to deal with myself anymore ... I could see myself becoming every one of those childhood excuses I came up with as a reason to cry ... they weren't really all made up ... I wanted to cry now, but I couldn't because I was all alone and no one cared and I wasn't going to be vulnerable, even though I needed to be vulnera ...

By Christmas 1993 I was smoking.

Such a stupid, ridiculous, self-depricating habit that makes about as much sense as taking up kite flying during a lightning storm, or skydiving with mosquito nets for parachutes, or marathon running in the Saraha.

What kind of fear, depression, sadness or lonliness gets better only by targeting your own body for destruction? I can't explain it - I just know that causing sirosis of the liver or cancer of the lung (slowly) seems to be where that type of confusion took me. It's a wonder I didn't take to cutting myself. But the reality is that I'm a little bit vain - so, I'd rather do things to the inside - not the outside. So, Preacher, it may not be all THAT bad that all is vanity ...

maybe.

At any rate, I found myself trying to sort out my life in my poetry. I had to untangle the intricate web of self-deception to figure out that I really wasn't a crazy, emotional little boy that cried a lot ... that really WASN'T me. I was actually a boy that wanted to love another boy. A man now - that wanted to love another man ... an emotional man that can figure out better ways to deal with shit other than crying, if for no other reason that no one was really listening anymore. Now, it was just me.

Just me, staring at the real world.

And while I felt like I could cry over the fact that I had pretended my entire life to that point and that I really didn't know anyone STILL who I could talk to about my sexuality ... I didn't want to listen to me cry. So, I wrote instead. And tried to explain to myself that I had trapped me deeply inside .. myself.

Trapped

Trapped in a world where I have no choice,
As in a cave of polished brass,
Where all I hear is my echoing voice,
That brings me grief that no one knows,
That pains my ear and shatters my soul;
It makes me tear and drives me mad.

Trapped in a room where I hate to see,
As I gaze at it and wonder why.
A misshapen figure that can't relate,
That can't understand the pain inside,
That won't reach out to hold my hand;
It makes me tear and drives me mad.

Trapped inside that mysterious man,
The one I see beyond the glass,
Who's trapped himself and can't reach out,
That needs my help as I need his;
His cries of sorrow pierce my heart;
It makes me tear. It's driven me mad.

and so there I stood - old enough to know better but not wise enough to let the inner me meet the world at large. The real me deep inside was growing up, outgrowing the tiny little emotional space I built for him ... pushing, kicking and screaming to be let out. But I held him inside that airtight little space within me and I continued to reinforce the seams of that space over and over and over again, allowing the pressure to build within me to limits no man should ever have to endure.

But I endured it. Year in and year out, I endured it.

I was smoking weed by Junior year.

The Evolution of Indifference (6)

Chapter 1


Chapter 2


Chapter 3


Chapter 4


Chapter 5


Chapter 6: Experimenting

My next experience was with my girlfriend’s brother. Yeah, I know – classy. You remember her, right? The one I went to church with who was pretty as hell and I really liked? Well, unfortunately, I didn’t like her brother at all … but, it was something to experiment with. It really wasn’t anything to write home about – we played frottage through our clothes. Big whoop. But at least I confirmed that you really, REALLY can’t wash remorse away with hot water. But that shower at least made me feel less dirty.

So, things were getting too close to home. I couldn’t continue to do this with people in my circle because eventually it would come to light. And I didn’t want it to. I couldn’t let it come out. In the end, I was still Latino amidst the machismo-ness of it all and still in church amidst the going-to-hell-ness of it all … so, no one could know. No one. So, I took to experimenting with strangers.

In public.

What a fucking retarded decision THAT was. In public! Because *that’s* a surefire way of not getting caught. You’re intrigued, aren’t you? Who – what – when – WHERE? Relax, I’m getting there.

You’d be amazed by the shit that goes on in crowded New York City subway cars. Fucking amazed. I mean, you’re packed into those mother fuckers like sardines, feeling people breathe on you, cough on you, jam an elbow into your ribs or a pocketbook into the small of your back … and occasionally, your hand ends up on some dick. I’m just saying – it happens.

I can’t tell you how many men I felt up. All willing participants, of course. Two are memorable – the man that was way too old to be fuckin with me who actually busted in his slacks when I reached behind me to grab a hold of what he was trying to bludgeon me with, and .. well … my regular. All the others just kinda fade into the meaninglessness in my life. Actually, these two do too, to be honest. But since I’m writing about it and forcing myself to try to remember those morning subway rides on my way to high school, those are the two I remember. The man in his 50’s that should never have been fuckin with me? I remember him because as he came he sounded like a blithering, blubbering idiot stammering out loud intermittently. He had no couth, among his many issues, and EVERYONE around us knew. Fucking idiot.

But my regular. It was a delicate dance on the subway platform figuring out where to stand to ensure we were not only going into the same subway car, but into the same door and also the last to get in. It’s less obvious when you’re by the door … you don’t have people completely all the way around you, so you can exercise discretion. Because, you know – you want to be considerate of the people around you and everything.

By definition, we crossed paths regularly. One time, he wore dress slacks and a long trench coat. After a bit of stroking, I played with his zipper. I looked up at him and he nodded yes. Except, I really didn’t know what to do after I unzipped him, so I didn’t. At the next stop, people disembarked (look, I didn’t want to say “got off”) and others got on … and he negotiated the barter of passengers on the platform with those in the train. As the train started up again, he grabbed my hand and moved it to his dick … and I mean his dick. Apparently, he unzipped himself and took his dick out his slacks and there I was … on a crowded subway train with this man’s dick in my hand, flesh-to-flesh with his overcoat hiding our dirty deed. While I stroked him, he spoke the only words I have ever heard him say. He whispered them and so till this day I don’t really know what his full voice sounds like. But I do know what that man whispers “I wanna fuck you,” it’s hot as fuck!

I don’t even know how that session ended – my memory ends right when he whispers that to me. I didn’t go anywhere with him … I made it to school like every other day. But to this day, I can go back into the recess of my mind that holds the memory of that session … and use it to its fullest extent when I’m flying solo. I know that I know that I KNOW that he’s the reason that talking dirty SO does it for me.

But even after that session, the remainder of the day went like any other. I made it to school, where I acted a fool, and later went to work at the Christian bookstore where I started every phone call with “Praise the Lord …”

I was a good little Christian … and worldly as fuck … all at the same time.

And my psyche was going to pay dearly for this duality.

The Evolution of Indifference (5)

Chapter 1


Chapter 2


Chapter 3


Chapter 4


Chapter 5: D.E.: My first time
I loved the Lord, and was all into church and teaching Sunday School and all that – but I still dealt with same sex attractions. I guess I thought they would go away, miraculously disappear. You know, like I would be healed like the leper Jesus healed – but there was never any walking and leaping after my deliverance. It was a perpetual desire.

When I started masturbating I always felt sinful, disgusting, remorseful. Interesting thing though is that I was cleaning my Pastors’ house for a while. I had a key and would go in there and clean while they were at work and they paid me. They both had full time jobs and I needed the money and so it was a win-win. The first time I masturbated, I was in their house … alone. Let me tell you that that totally didn’t help the remorse I felt. I thought I was going to hell any minute now.

But I didn’t. Not physically, that is. But I continued to live in my own little hell. Wanting something that I felt I couldn’t have, that was always right at my grasp but that I couldn’t reach out for. I was a bitter little fucker, that’s for sure.

I had been working at the local newsstand, putting together Sunday newspapers and trying to keep up with the madness. (Damn, New Yorkers just love themselves the Sunday Times!) Eventually, I started working inside the store, selling cigarettes, lottery tickets and porn. Suffice it to say, the pastors were not happy. But mom insisted I make money so that I could buy my own clothes, pay for my own bus fare, buy my own school lunches and pay her rent. My older brother, by the way, didn’t have to do any of this – just me. That’s a WHOLE ‘nother issue entirely.

But I had a crush on one of my fellow employees. He was so damn attractive. One day, after knowing him for well over a year, he was around my neck of the woods and a bunch of us were hanging out. He was drunk as hell and everyone was afraid to let him walk home because he had to cross a major boulevard with three lanes in each direction and there was no stop light at our intersection. I volunteered to walk him home. He was 18 (don’t ask me where he got the booze) and I was 15.

On the way back, the small talk was pretty typical. But it got flirty really fast. I really didn’t know what to do with it. I was so totally and incredibly nervous, but I was loving how my body was feeling, just flirting. We were talking about working out or gym rats or whatever and I’ll never forget it. I said, “my ass is FAT.” I totally meant that I was a fat bastard and I needed to go to the gym. He responded and said, “oh really?” and grabbed a palm full of my right ass cheek. Right there in the middle of the street in front of God and everyone. It was pretty late at night and no one was around, but I thought it was audacious.

I had never known that feeling – it was shocking, it was electricity, it was … it was something. Whatever it was, his hand caused it – and it shot through my body and to my chest. My heart began to race. I really had NO idea what was going on or what to do with it … all I knew is that I liked what I felt.

We got to the corner of his block and he thanked me and began to dismiss me. Except I didn’t let him. I wanted more. He seemed hesitant, but the newness of it all had me eager and I wasn’t going to let up. I could see it in his face that he had no idea how he was going to work this out. He invited me down his block and we walked down the street together. It was a dead end street he lived on.

He passed his house and proceeded to the end of the block. I assumed that we were going to go to and through the treeline at the end of the block and I frankly didn’t care. That was fine by me. At the last house on the block, the porch light was on … that’s as far as he went – he looked into their front yard and verified no one was there. “Come on,” he said and walked back in the direction we had come from to his house. He opened the front gate, sat on his front porch and told me to sit next to him.

So I did. And we talked about who was going to do what. We were both nervous – and both insisting that the other expose himself. Eventually, I did. But quickly hid the good again. It freaked me out. “Let me see,” he said and I did it again … he reached for me and grabbed hold.

HOLY SHIT. My body was on fire and I wasn’t sure what to focus on. On what I saw, on the electricity within me or even if the electricity was what I was SUPPSOED to be feeling. It was absolutely NOTHING I had imagined to that point. And before I could figure it out – he stopped.

And then he wouldn’t expose himself – and insisted that I reach in and do it myself. At this point, I didn’t need any prodding. In I went. And what I found was bitter sweet. I loved the feel of it, the soft spongy layer of skin covering a stiff rod of cartilage and it was just divine. There I was at 15 experimenting … and I was kinda freaked out. I absolutely thought he was a freak – it was uncut and much wider than it was fat, rather oval in cross-section.

What the fuck?!?! Aren’t these things all round (not oval) and cut?!? Aren’t they? That’s how mine is – that’s how my brother’s is … you mean they’re all different?!?

He invited me into his house and we went in through the basement door and directly into his bedroom. I had no idea what was in store – all I know is that I followed like an attention starved stray. In his room he asked me how far I wanted to go. I didn’t answer, I didn’t know what to say. There must have been a quizzical look on my face – he stood behind me, unzipped me and all I wanted him to do was hold me closer. He went to town, had me squirming – and I reach up behind me and wrapped my hand around his neck.

As soon as I ejaculated he let go and stepped away. I was confused. I knew I had to finish myself off which I did and his carpet was a mess. I was looking down at it and he slammed his sneaker down on it and rubbed it all into the carpet until it disappeared. I zipped up and looked around the dark room confused. I looked at him and he told me that I needed to leave. We headed to the door.

At the door, I looked at him with the most confused little 15 year old look my face could muster. Not on purpose – I was just genuinely confused … and hurt. I mean, he totally let go! He said, “oh God, you’re not going to cry, are you?” I turned around, walked up his driveway. And ran home. But I couldn’t outrun the guilt, shame and remorse, no matter HOW fast I ran. And, let me tell you – I ran fast as fuck.

But you can’t outrun shame.

You can’t outrun guilt.

And you can’t wash remorse away no matter how hot you turn the water on.

The Evolution of Indifference (Repost)

Chapter 1


Chapter 2


Chapter 3


Chapter 4: The Mask

The crying had to stop. I knew it did; certainly, I couldn’t grow up and be a grown man who cried all the time. But I needed another coping mechanism. I didn’t exactly know the right terminology then, but I knew I needed something. Something outside of my family, because my family could never understand. My mother wasn’t what I would call motherly, and so I needed something that would make me feel like someone was taking care of me. I remember telling my mother one day that I wanted to go to church.

She sent me with a neighbor to a Catholic mass. It was grueling. I sat through the service and found it empty – not the church, because it was full of people. But the place was missing something. There was no one to connect to and that’s really what I needed. So, although I was sure that church was the answer, this particular church wasn’t.

One day, I was looking out of the front window and saw a blur of color run across the street. Now, this doesn’t happen often in the residential neighborhoods of New York City. It was definitely different. It was a clown. Clown suit, face paint and all, running across the street and disappearing into the backyard. I went to investigate. (Did Steve King move in down the street?!?)

With some trepidation, I walked down the street and into the backyard where IT went. When I got back there, I saw rows of chairs, a lectern and a microphone. I was welcomed by two ladies who explained that they were having a church gathering. For kids. Hmmmmm, I thought. Ok. So, I stayed – and met Mr. Scriptures, the Gospel Clown.

For all the ridiculousness it sounds like, several things are important here. First, they were glad I was there. Second, it was actually kind of fun. Third, I was a nerd and was totally given, even at 10, to the notion that knowledge was power. So, I stayed and met tons of new people – and of all the people on my block that showed up that day, I was the only one that kept coming back. And there I began to construct a new family, new friends a new life where no one knew I was really a confused little boy that cried all the time just to get attention.

So, with all this newfound attention, the crying itself actually stopped. I think that’s what convinced my parents to let me continue to attend this church – they figured it was good for me. And to a very large extent, it was. The good things to say that were buried deep within me began to surface because people actually began to listen. I learned to sing, I learned lots of Bible and found my first real girlfriend.

I really liked her. We held hands and all and she made me feel good, special. She thought I was the cutest thing ever and I really thought she was pretty. And I began to think that the confusion was lifting – I really liked this girl. It didn’t matter to me at the time that the confusing fantasies about boys never left or subsided; all that mattered is that I really liked this girl, I didn’t have to kiss her because it was strictly forbidden in church and all the confines to that puppy-love relationship made it just perfect for me.

I really loved that church. For a while, I would attend in the winters and disappear during the summers because there was so much else to do around the neighborhood. That became an issue in that church because I needed to be more consistent. Well, I had to give that some thought – but the reality of my life was that I was living a duality. Another one.

Not only was I hiding my attraction to the same sex, and learning to stifle it away and not deal with it … I was developing relationships with a church family who didn’t know anyone in my biological family … and my biological family never went to church with me and didn’t know my church family. There was no cross-contamination there for me. My parents let me go to church because it kept me off the streets and I was maturing, growing out of the crybaby phase. And my pastors began to feel like I was their kid and treated me as such.

The real me was buried down deeper than before. I wasn’t trying to deal with anything, so I wore this crybaby image for a while and let it go for this devout Christian image. But even then, there was the real me – that only the people at school knew. I had a trunk full of facemasks that I interchanged at will. And everywhere I went I fit in perfectly.

Except when I was by myself.

The Evolution of Indifference (4)

Chapter 1


Chapter 2


Chapter 3


Chapter 4: The Mask

The crying had to stop. I knew it did; certainly, I couldn’t grow up and be a grown man who cried all the time. But I needed another coping mechanism. I didn’t exactly know the right terminology then, but I knew I needed something. Something outside of my family, because my family could never understand. My mother wasn’t what I would call motherly, and so I needed something that would make me feel like someone was taking care of me. I remember telling my mother one day that I wanted to go to church.

She sent me with a neighbor to a Catholic mass. It was grueling. I sat through the service and found it empty – not the church, because it was full of people. But the place was missing something. There was no one to connect to and that’s really what I needed. So, although I was sure that church was the answer, this particular church wasn’t.

One day, I was looking out of the front window and saw a blur of color run across the street. Now, this doesn’t happen often in the residential neighborhoods of New York City. It was definitely different. It was a clown. Clown suit, face paint and all, running across the street and disappearing into the backyard. I went to investigate. (Did Steve King move in down the street?!?)

With some trepidation, I walked down the street and into the backyard where IT went. When I got back there, I saw rows of chairs, a lectern and a microphone. I was welcomed by two ladies who explained that they were having a church gathering. For kids. Hmmmmm, I thought. Ok. So, I stayed – and met Mr. Scriptures, the Gospel Clown.

For all the ridiculousness it sounds like, several things are important here. First, they were glad I was there. Second, it was actually kind of fun. Third, I was a nerd and was totally given, even at 10, to the notion that knowledge was power. So, I stayed and met tons of new people – and of all the people on my block that showed up that day, I was the only one that kept coming back. And there I began to construct a new family, new friends a new life where no one knew I was really a confused little boy that cried all the time just to get attention.

So, with all this newfound attention, the crying itself actually stopped. I think that’s what convinced my parents to let me continue to attend this church – they figured it was good for me. And to a very large extent, it was. The good things to say that were buried deep within me began to surface because people actually began to listen. I learned to sing, I learned lots of Bible and found my first real girlfriend.

I really liked her. We held hands and all and she made me feel good, special. She thought I was the cutest thing ever and I really thought she was pretty. And I began to think that the confusion was lifting – I really liked this girl. It didn’t matter to me at the time that the confusing fantasies about boys never left or subsided; all that mattered is that I really liked this girl, I didn’t have to kiss her because it was strictly forbidden in church and all the confines to that puppy-love relationship made it just perfect for me.

I really loved that church. For a while, I would attend in the winters and disappear during the summers because there was so much else to do around the neighborhood. That became an issue in that church because I needed to be more consistent. Well, I had to give that some thought – but the reality of my life was that I was living a duality. Another one.

Not only was I hiding my attraction to the same sex, and learning to stifle it away and not deal with it … I was developing relationships with a church family who didn’t know anyone in my biological family … and my biological family never went to church with me and didn’t know my church family. There was no cross-contamination there for me. My parents let me go to church because it kept me off the streets and I was maturing, growing out of the crybaby phase. And my pastors began to feel like I was their kid and treated me as such.

The real me was buried down deeper than before. I wasn’t trying to deal with anything, so I wore this crybaby image for a while and let it go for this devout Christian image. But even then, there was the real me – that only the people at school knew. I had a trunk full of facemasks that I interchanged at will. And everywhere I went I fit in perfectly.

Except when I was by myself.

The Evolution of Indifference (3)

Chapter 1


Chapter 2


Chapter 3: The Beginning

I was four. I was four young years old. It seems surreal to me that I was conscious of my own sexual identity at four years old, but Iwas. It probably would not have been such a big issue to me then if Iknew that all the sexual issues that intrigued me were *supposed* to intrigue me. But while I was developing an attraction to anyone and everyone who my four year old eyes found attractive, I was aware that I could only give and accept affection from girls.

One day I was at my aunt's house and she was baby-sitting some girl. So, naturally we ran around the apartment making noise like the freaks kids are. At one point, this girl started strutin' like she was doing her THANG on some runway. So, naturally, I did the same.

Tears.

It came so naturally to me to walk that runway walk but my aunt, who saw me, fucked me the fuck up for it. Through tears of complete and utter confusion I explained to her that the girl had just done the same fucking thing. Her response made me cry even harder: apparently, she could do it cuz she was a girl, but i wasn't allowed to sink my hip into my walk because *I* was a BOY.

I didn't get it. Sure, my cousins would all point little girls out to me and such, but I was only half interested, interested enough to look, but never intrigued enough to approach -- so I never did.

They pinned me as shy, my entire family did. And I learned to be the epitome of everything they thought I *should* be. Well, fuck, I got smacked around less often, and they all found the timid little blonde Puerto Rican kid endearing.

But deep down inside, I was conscious of what I was stifling -- an extrovert, a care-free spirit, and all sorts of good things to say. I so LONGED to be all those things, I knew I *was* all those things (even at four) but I gave in to some sort of family expectation of me. It was just easier.

I got away with staring at grown men simply because I was pinned as the shy one. So, staring without saying a word became a sort of trademark of mine. When I stared at women, the adults would rant and rave about the new crush I had. My silence even when questioned proved to convince them I was shy.

I wasn't shy. I was a confused little boy who when he saw an attractive heterosexual couple walk along the street couldn't decide whether to admire the man or ogle the woman. No idea. Confused, not shy.

When I stared at a woman I had a crush on, I would feel all sorts of smiley when my family caught me staring and brought my crush to light. I felt like they understood me, and since I to this very day don't really know what that feels like I would flush red. When the issue wasn't a crush and they thought it was, it pissed me off and I'd catch major attitudes with people. Yeah, sure, family, I'm shy.

When I stared at a man I had a crush on, I would get all sorts of upset that I would get reprimanded for just staring when I should have something to say instead. The issue was always about timidity, not about the crush. God, I hated that. Can't someone just bring it to light and make me flush red? Can't someone understand? Why does everyone think that what I feel is so wrong? Why does my family refuse to understand? Why is it that ...

I figured it out one day. I was in grade school by this point, and had a serious crush on a boy in my class. A stupid crush. I was always careful not to let anyone know that I stared at him, so I usually did the deed during recess. No one ever knew. And what I learned was that the answer to all those questions was all the same --people don't love you if you have crush on boys.

And I so needed love.

It was destroying me, stunting my growth as a gay man because the identity that was at the very core of me made me need to feel loved so much more often than the average kid because I was entrenched in the machismo culture. It was destroying me, stunting my maturing process because the identity that was at the very core of me wanted to be let loose, and ached for the entire world to know.

But if they knew -- they wouldn't love me.

So, I needed people to know so I could be me and feel at ease with who I was -- because who I was brought me so much joy.

But I needed not to tell because I wanted family and friends to love me.

By the time I was in fourth grade, I had already decided that I could not feel that joy that would come with coming to terms with what made me different from everyone I knew. I opted, instead, to have people like me. That was my reality - be liked or be happy.

By the time I was in fifth grade, the chamber that was where my adam's apple now is was jammed suitcase-tight with unrealeased tension. I had by the age of ten decided that I could not come to terms with who I really was. I opted to feel a love from people for who I wasn't, rather than to feel the joy that comes with telling all.

I told nothing.

I was always miserable.

And I never REALLY smiled when I smiled.

But I always really cried when I cried.

Evolution of Indifference (2)

Chapter 1

Chapter 2: The Bald Black Woman


I knew I was special. I just knew it. Even as a child I knew the potential in me, but knowing that it was merely a potential insulted me. I hated it, I absolutely hated it. I hated that no one could see how special I was.

Tears.

You already know that my parent's divorce affectly me very little. It was external to me, and I didn't care -- it wasn't my issue. In fact, I began to bask in their trials because I could use it as an excuse to cry. Forever.

Realization.

You can cry a lot because of a divorce. Adults in school fed me attention, and fed me attention. I knew I was different, I knew I was special, and although all the glory was given me under the guise of "child of a now-single mom," attention was *still* given to me. I loved it.

In fact, I cried everyday. All day, even. And milked the issue so badly, I was given a guidance counselor.

Tears.

I didn't realize it, but all that crying was making me vulnerable. My guidance counselor was convinced that my parents' divorce was earth-shattering for me because I wouldn't look her in her face. We talked about my not being able to look at her during our sessions.

Tears.

I couldn't do it because I thought that she, with all her status, would look into my eyes and see the feeble little different boy-- she was trained to do it, after all. I was afraid she would find me out and tell my class, tell my teacher, tell my mom, tell my brother, tell my friends,
tell everyone. They would all find out if this bitch were to look into my eyes. Hang down your head, kid -- Hang it LOW.

We played Tic-Tac-Toe on a wooden board with brass sleeves. The X's and O's were brass as well. I stared at them the entire time, never taking my eyes off of the non-fleshy brass that could not see in my eyes the fact that I was lying, that I was indeed different.

But I thought the brass knew. I was convinced it knew. I would think to them, and they could hear. They knew. They knew I was "different." I grew to like that weekly hour of mindless Tic-Tac-Toe game after Tic-Tac-Toe game. The X's and O's and I could silently talk about real shit, and they couldn't open their big fat mouths, if for NO other reason than they simply didn't have mouths.

My counselor was a black woman. Bald, kinda. At least that's what I considered it then. I don't recall her name - don't ask why. It took me a while to get accustomed to her because of all the prejudices instilled in me as a younger kid, but because I was staring at the brassy letter on the table, the color of her skin blended away and the soothing murmurings of her vocal cords could sooth me.

At some point during the school year, it no longer mattered that I was the only 6th grader with a counselor (trust you me, that's a good excuse to cry too), it was not an issue that no one at home cared that I was in counselling (another tear jerker), none of it mattered.

The only thing that mattered to me was meeting that woman and hearing her voice every week, even if she *was* black. The color of her skin was no longer a threat to me -- it was a comfort now. Everything about her was a comfort. I talked, she listened. She told me I had
good things to say. She wanted to know about my week. I mattered to that bald, black woman.

She was teaching me a lot -- she had answers to each and everything I cried about. So, I would listen and know she was right. I was beginning to learn all sorts of ways to handle the things she thought were adversely affecting me, that made me cry.

At first I thought she was a fool for believing my reasons for crying (LADY! I'M FUCKING DIFFERENT) but then I decided to start filing her advice about things that weren't even issues with me in the back of my mind.

Oh and they were gonna be real; all those issues conjured up by the mind of a 10 year old would soon be realities in my life. And when they became real issues for me, I handled them well -- all because of that bald, black woman.

But at ten years old, she a fool to me -- she did nothing to tackle the real issue. There was no emotion in there -- she was a girl.

Tears.

The Evolution of Indifference

In 1998 I began to write an autobiography. Its title is the title of this blog post. I got through three chapters that April and never picked it back up. For some odd reason, I got to thinking about it again recently and thought that maybe this blog might be a good place to try it out. I figure that if you comment and tell me it's boring as fuck and to get back to the hysteria, then my having abandoned it was the right decision. If, however, I get feedback that I should continue, I'll be at a crossroads. I will have to seriously confront the reality that, much like most things in my life, I didn't follow through and should have. So, for your viewing pleasure - here's the first chapter:

***Chapter 1: Tears of Difference***

I was an emotional wreck. I'm not talking about any particular day, here -- I mean as a child, and in general. The most inconsequential things made me cry. It didn't help being the epitome of everything any malicious 5th grader could conjure up to tease some less fortunate classmate about. See, I was always Mr. Less Fortunate. Always. Mr. shortest, Mr. youngest, Mr. nerd, Mr. quiet, Mr. sissy ... You know, Mr. Less Fortunate.

My parents' divorce was just another one of those things that happened external to me. I too soon in life learned not to give a fuck about things that did not directly affect my feelings. You see, I was driven by my feelings. They were at the forefront of every one of my efforts. Simply put: I did what I *felt* like doing. So, usually, I cried.

You'd be surprised at how much attention you get as a child if you cry, especially if you do it often. What an outpouring. But the reality behind the issue that made me cry made that incessant outpouring fruitless. Adults everywhere tried to help me through each and every little thing that scarred me; no one knew that each and every time, those things were fictitious. I made them all up. How do you tell mom or dad that your everyday issue, the thing that always makes you cry is the complete and thorough understanding that you're different than everyone else? Different than them. Different than your brother. Different than your friends. Different than everything on TV. Different. Just different. How?

You don't, that's how. You bottle it all up in this secret chamber within you, a chamber that, for me, sat where my adam's apple was to be. I collected it all, bore it all, and it's only release was a good long hard cry. Anywhere. Because it didnt matter. If I was at the dinner table and was about to implode? Tears. If I was hauling my books to school and halfway through my walk that chamber within me was about to bust? Tears. Nothing mattered. Nothing. Tears. Tears. More Tears. They ran down my face with the warmth of ice and dripped off my chin, wasted. But I learned that crying was OH so therapeutic.

Even if it *was* cold.

I needed everything to be perfect, predictable. If anything was out of place, it was another reason to cry. I remember one day I sat on a stool in my mother's kitchen while my father dabbled with my hair (For a while, he was convinced he was the world's best barber). It was a nice, predictable Sunday visit from Daddy; he cut my hair. When he was done, I looked in the mirror only to find that it was wrong. It was too short, I looked like a fool, my face looked big, the kids would tease me, it wasn't what I wanted, it wasn't what I had imagined, and my mind NasCar raced through all the possible trials I would suffer as a consequence ... instant tears.

I took a bath, because it was normal to do so after a haircut, right? One problem. I sat in the tub to cry with the shower on, the drain wide open. The tub didn't fill. I let warm water pelt my face to offset the cold tears my cheeks were all too familiar with. It must have been an odd sounding shower; dad found me.

More Tears.

Tears.

Tears.

Yes, the family was convinced: the hysterical kid is crying because he doesn't like his haircut. They all told me how wonderful it looked, how much the girls would flock to me, and I had to force myself to bottle everything back up into that massive ball of bottled up fear that was eventually to choke me -- the *girls*?!? If I was to convince them it was the haircut, the accolades should suffice, I figured. But it wasn't the hair. I was different. I was DIFFERENT. Different than my own family. So different I couldn't tell them. So different I refused to be me. I simply refused to be me. No one knew who I was, and soon I was going to find out that my very own childhood facades would make even me forget who I was.

What a paradox.

Those facades defined me, proved to get me through each of my childhood days, and were my way of extracting great joys out of life.

Yet, simultaneously, those facades washed me of identity, proved to prevent me from growing up, and would eventually become a great source of misery for me.

Tears.